14 DAY TRIAL // Celebrity feuds are not as uncommon as some would want them to be, although, in all fairness, it takes a certain type of celebrity to engage in them. When Etta James threatened to beat Beyonce senseless during a live concert a while back, fans were not pleased with her reaction, as neither were representatives of the media, who labeled her behavior the best example of the “diva syndrome.” Everybody got it wrong, James is now saying, since she did not mean anything by it.
According to gossip site / paparazzi agency TMZ, citing the NY Daily News, Etta has come out of hiding to address her outburst on stage last week. She did not mean anything bad by saying she would whoop Beyonce for singing “her” song, she was just venting her frustration. According to TMZ, Etta simply felt left out of the Inauguration and this is why she picked on Beyonce for getting to sing a cover of “At Last” for the first dance of Barack and Michelle Obama as President and First Lady.
“Etta says she was just kidding when she said threatened Beyonce. James tells the NY Daily New her words were not from a vicious place. Etta confesses she felt left out of the Inauguration festivities because she wasn’t asked to sing ‘her song,’ adding that she thinks she could have sung the song better.” TMZ reports. In the meanwhile, camp Beyonce continue to remain silent in what regards the verbal threat Etta James made on stage.
“You know, YOUR President, the one with the big ears-he ain’t my President – had that woman singing for him at his Inauguration. She’s going to get her [expletive] whooped. How dare Beyonce sing MY song that I been singing forever. Now I’m going to sing it for y’all… The great Beyonce… I can’t stand Beyonce.” Etta said before singing “At Last” in a Seattle concert.
As a side note, while Etta James did make “At Last” famous, as TMZ also points out, it is not her song per se, as two other singers also recorded it before her. “Glenn Miller did it first in 1942, followed by Nat King Cole in 1957. Etta got around to recording it in 1961,” the aforementioned source notes.